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Troy pizzeria offers diners a gluten-free, nut-free option

Photo by Bridget Vis/Crain's Detroit Business
Customers who have gluten or nut allergies can dine at Renee's Gourmet Pizzeria in Troy without worry about getting sick from cross-contamination.

The menu at Renee’s Gourmet Pizzeria offers up the usual pizzeria fare, including calzones, salads and flat bread.

It’s what the newly opened Troy pizza place doesn’t serve that makes it unique: The restaurant is entirely gluten- and nut-free.

Industry experts say they don’t know of another such pizzeria in metro Detroit — or in Michigan. They call it a game-changer for people with food allergies and intolerances — people such as the restaurant’s namesake, Renee Hertz. Renee is the 14-year-old daughter of co-owner Gabe Hertz, and she has a severe nut allergy along with celiac disease, the gluten intolerance affecting around 1 percent of Americans.

After several years of watching his daughter become sick from cross-contamination after eating out, Hertz decided to leave his position as co-owner of a Bloomfield Hills-based Relax The Back franchise and open the pizzeria in February with co-owner Tim Karapici at 1937 W. Maple Road, in the Cambridge Crossings shopping center.

His career change took a nontraditional path, one motivated by passion rather than experience. Hertz had no formal culinary education or restaurant experience. With a background in sales, his only connection to the food industry was a catering business his mother owned years ago.

He invested $300,000 into opening Renee’s and spent a year developing his gluten-free pizza dough — a blend of rice, tapioca and bean flour. “I figured if I could make dough that did not taste like cardboard, and actually tasted really good, then I could not only attract people who were gluten- and nut-free, but also regular customers who want to eat gourmet pizza,” he said.

“I know the only way a restaurant can be 100 percent safe for those people is not to have the ingredient in the restaurant.”

Finding a niche

Gabe Hertz

At Renee’s, every item is homemade and each product is carefully screened to be free of contamination from nuts and gluten. There are also signs posted on the door prohibiting customers from bringing in food containing those ingredients.

“We had a couple sneak in baby food that was processed in a facility that had nuts, and we had to sanitize the whole area,” he said. “We can’t take any chances.”

Besides making the 50-seat pizzeria safe, Hertz said he also wanted to make it affordable for families; the 12-inch specialty pizza is $12.99 and the 16-inch is $16.99. He said he sells between 80 and 150 pizzas a day.

The menu contains more than the typical pizzeria fare. There are chicken strips made with Fritos in the breading, french fries (a rarity in the gluten-free world) and family recipe Hungarian goulash with dumplings along with cinnamon rolls and an assortment of other baked goods – all gluten- and nut-free.

Margaret Orlando, president of the Tri-County Celiac Support Group, Southeastern Michigan’s largest celiac support group, dined at Renee’s and toured its kitchen. The organization is considering giving Renee’s its first restaurant endorsement.

“Renee’s is really trying to do something special for people with celiac disease” and others who cannot consume gluten or nuts, she said.

Orlando said she is not aware of any other restaurant in the area or state that can claim to be allergen-free, although there are several all-gluten-free bakeries.

She said metro Detroit’s restaurants have a long way to go in learning about how to safely prepare gluten-free items, even if more restaurants are offering more gluten-free alternatives. Those restaurants could learn from Renee’s, she said.

“People (with food intolerances and allergies) are really supportive of anyone who tries to help us, and if they have a good product people will come back,” she said.

Stacy Goldberg, founder and CEO of Detroit-based Savorfull LLC, which connects businesses and organizations with allergen-free foods, said Renee’s is targeting the two populations most in need of restaurant dining options. But the key for the pizzeria’s success, she said, will be getting the word out to the gluten- and nut-free communities.

Making specialty affordable

Steve Pollard, owner of a Guido’s Premium Pizza Inc. franchis e in Okemos and adjoining WOW With Out Wheat, Michigan’s only restaurant to be certified gluten-free through the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness, said he supported Hertz’s effort to offer safe and affordable pizza, but cautioned about Renee’s low prices and only gluten-free offerings.

Pollard said he would not be able to stay in business if not for his regular pizza business, even though sales of his gluten-free pizzas have increased 70 percent since he began serving them seven years ago.

“There would not be enough customers to support a separate entity,” he said.

WOW’s offerings, which also extend beyond pizza, are prepared in a gluten-free facility next to the Guido’s restaurant, but served to customers seated in the main dining area, so there is no separate gluten-free dining space, said Pollard.

Due to the cost of gluten-free products, Pollard said he has to charge higher prices for gluten-free items. A regular 12-inch specialty pizza at Guido’s is $12, while a WOW 12-inch specialty pizza is $22.

He sells about 70 regular pizzas and about 22 gluten-free pizzas daily.

Hertz, however, said he has no intention of expanding into the regular pizza business; he is able to keep costs down, he added, by making everything from scratch — including milling his own flour.

Though he has no revenue projections, Hertz has a goal of getting his pizza into schools and stores such as Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s.

“Right now, this is all passion; it’s not about making money,” he said.

Hertz mentioned a recent Friday night, when there was a 40-minute wait for a table at the restaurant. “So that’s got to mean we’re doing something right,” he said.